When I noted that
> The first [Nexis] citation, curiously, comes
>from the "On Language" column of the N. Y. Times Magazine, but not on
>Safire's watch. One of his summer replacements, Steven Weisman, wrote on
>12 July 1987 about the glories of Indian English, citing "prepone"...
I forgot to mention that this Mr. Weisman's day job was New Delhi bureau
chief for the Times. I also didn't mean to suggest that the verb
originated in or around 1987; the tenor of the citations was that this is a
fairly long-standing item in the lexicon of Indian English.